Public Speaking

“The whirr of a crane, a truck blaring a warning that it’s in reverse, concrete breaking under the force of a jackhammer—for many New Yorkers, this is the incessant background noise of the city. For Harris, these sounds are the building blocks of his next composition.” - MoMA Magazine

"The last performance, by New York based artist Jason Harris (known as Public Speaking), served as a strong juxtaposition. Though absent of any familiar song structure, the songs of Public Speaking were made a bit more accessible through pattern and repetition. Harris made use of an effect pedal that would record a sound he made and turn it into an endless loop. He added one loop on top of another on top of all the ones before it, building each song rather than performing it. An innocuous sound, such as Harris banging on a VHS cassette, became a small piece of a complex drum beat.
While the sound Public Speaking produced was most definitely music (even in the traditional sense) his method demonstrated that it could be little more than a collection of separate noises. Public Speaking was not the rote performance often typical of live music but instead a creative moment the audience could witness. Even with the most accessible sounds of Public Speaking, the “music” of the night was never catchy, or easy. Still, the compound filled with people looking to see where music comes from, what it’s built of, and where it may go." - ARTICULATE

"New York’s Jason Anthony Harris, aka Public Speaking, creates semiabstract, densely packed soundscapes at the 5th Dimension with Microkingdom, Whoarfrost, and Andrew Bernstein." - Baltimore City Paper

"New York’s Jason Anthony Harris, aka Public Speaking, creates semiabstract, densely packed soundscapes at the 5th Dimension with Microkingdom, Whoarfrost, and Andrew Bernstein." - Baltimore City Paper

"If I was making a post-apocalyptic film I would cast Jason Anthony Harris. I’d put him in a cornfield.
The leading lady suffers from hallucinations. She runs through detritus, over shattered neon. The bottom drops out. The hallucinations recoil. She finds herself at the edge of a vast expanse of field.
As she weaves her way through the ghostly husks, poly-rhythmic blurbs pulse in and out. She follows the sound, the clouds pass over too quickly, Jason Anthony Harris sits amidst rotten cobs, a single soul surgically bound to a fusion of loop station, vocoder, decades of effects pedals welded together, banging his microphone into dry earth and crooning a twilight monologue. Amplified fuzz settles behind him and retorts, blistering, as a chorus of 100 looped voices swallow time. She is mesmerized.
He doesn’t see her. He continues tweaking the corn husks, banging the mic, discovering enhancements to this improvised loop, voice magnificent and morose, lost in a world of single being in performance. She kneels to catch his gaze, to no avail. The music grows frantic, the looped chorus relapses into a single, flat-lined tone. He utters something with his gently immaculate British accent but we can’t make out what he’s saying as the hallucinations have returned, violently raining antique tea cups, pieces of scone, all of it looped and oddly beautiful. Our leading lady is running, running through the cornfield, Harris’s opus tripping her, heavy, dance-worthy beats and a gritty pool of sonic potential, waiting to be tapped." - Experimental NYC [Deli Mag]

"Anyone out there who remembers those fantastic voyages Thom Yorke used to take in his vocalized trances on 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' will appreciate hearing the journeys Public Speaking is planning on taking you on.
This is soul music functioning as 21st century meditation. Jason Anthony Harris has taken the defining objects of our modern age, and imported hidden meaning to their status. From re-purposed kitchen utensils in 'Funny You Ask,' to the percussive cold comfort of 'Isn't Fair,' to the chilling range of the processed harmonium in album closer 'Subtraction,' Public Speaking is what happens when an artist personally realizes the sound of his environment, and puts it to use. For everyone a little tired of James Blake, come back home to Brooklyn and experience the intimate soul croon of Public Speaking, and see him when he plays at Theaterlab March 31st." - Mike Levine - The Deli Magazine